


The Divorce

by IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow



Category: The X-Files
Genre: AU, Angst, Depictions of child loss, F/M, Post Season 8, This one hurts a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 13:06:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15729999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow/pseuds/IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow
Summary: A prompt fill for the anon who asked for MSR going through a divorce AU.





	The Divorce

There are tears glistening in her eyes as she signs the papers. This isn’t what she wanted; how she envisioned their ending. Truthfully, she had reconciled with the thought that they would be  _taken_  from one another, not that they would willingly part. He notices her hand shake, and she closes her eyes.

Across the table, he wants to reach for her, but his lawyer has advised him otherwise with a gentle pressure against his arm. His soon-to-be ex-wife did not sign a prenuptial agreement, and his lawyer considers it pure dumb-luck that she isn’t filing for alimony; he doesn’t want him to push it.

“ _Scully_ ,” he says emphatically, and she almost weeps at the way he says her name. After this, there will be no one left to call her like that, to  _say her name_ like he does. “Let me _help_  you. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“Oh, Mulder,” she murmurs, swallowing the lump in her throat. Her voice is tight, and she struggles with her final words “but it does.”

The phrase ‘Irreconcilable differences’ taunts her mind, reminding her of her past, present, and future failures. In truth, it is a lie; a sham. How can something be ‘no-fault’ when she was clearly to blame?  

That night her body is pressed lamely against the tiles of the shower, the scalding water sluicing over her body, giving her skin a peachy sheen. The steam is hot and clouds the air and she feels as if she is suffocating. Later, Dana lays in the plush hotel bed, her long red hair splayed across the white pillows. She had flown back to Maryland from her self-induced exile to sign divorce papers officially ending a marriage that had only lasted two years but felt like so much longer. They had only made it to cotton, like the Knicks shirt that covers her body, no longer smelling like him.

Tomorrow, she will return to her small, barren apartment, but for now she follows her nightly ritual. Rituals have gotten her though her life thus far, and it is at moments of instability when she needs them most. The well-worn and weathered picture slides from it’s place in her wallet and into her hands. She had screamed at Mulder when he got it laminated, worried that they would look warped and unreal, but now if she could, she would thank him. Surely, the oils from her fingers would have rubbed his face off by now otherwise.

She had been so  _selfish_  to keep him, so  _stupid,_ knowing she could never protect him. She had sent Mulder into hiding but kept her son by her side. Her love for him, her consuming need to keep him, to wake up next to him every morning and inhale his sweet baby scent, made her weak. It is what made him vulnerable. Her tears fall in fat droplets over them; a happy family of another time. She smooths the tears off his tiny, smiling baby face and whispers to him, hoping he can hear her.

“I’m  _so_ sorry,” she sobs, repeating the words over and over, praying that somehow, he can hear her; that he can forgive her. Finally, when she calms her breathing, she whispers to him, like she’s done every night since he was born and since his death a year ago. “Mommy loves you,  _William._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the anon who sent this prompt! If you have a fic prompt, message me on tumblr @ShadeQueenScully. Thanks for reading!


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